Frozen Teardrop Read Online Free PDF

about figure skating.
    I literally learned to eat, drink, walk, and speak at this Parisian skating rink, where according to my mother the other mothers occasionally politely reminded her that she had another child besides the child on the ice — an observation suggesting that I might need more individualized attention. True or not, I am certain my mother intended to neglect no one. If she is guilty of anything, she was guilty of trying to please too many people and trying to be all things to two daughters at once in a land where everything was foreign to her and both of her children proved to be quite demanding.
    At the age of two and a half I started attending nursery school and I absolutely loved it. I had been learning Swiss-German at home and now going to a French school I added a second language to my vocabulary — or to my complexity, as some might see it. The school dean told my parents that everything I attempted I seemed to quickly master. It was a wonderful report for my mother and father to hear but it undoubtedly created extraordinary hopes and expectations within them and for myself regarding my ultimate potential in life. I do recall my French school providing a wonderful learning environment for my classmates and me. Our days were filled with endless creativity and wonderful French songs, plays, and musical performances. We spent hours at a time simply drawing and painting, our instructors encouraging us to express our inner selves through the richness of color and shape.
    These wonderful arts and crafts experiences channeled my emotions into meticulous little creations that I proudly brought home to my mother, insisting that my artistry be displayed for all to see. My mother always obliged and faithfully gave me more glowing reviews than my artwork at the time probably deserved — as many mothers do for their children. She was always there for my sister and me in these simple but critical ways in the early years. Time, stress, her own life history, and many of my own life choices would one day make of her someone I could barely recognize, but she always — always — did mean to do her best and to love and provide for both of her daughters. This I would know throughout my life regardless of circumstance and regardless of her impact upon me. My mother faithfully accompanied us to and from school and tried diligently to help us use our free time in productive pursuits that were of our own choosing. My sister’s school ended much later than mine, so while waiting for my sister, we went to the park to play, surrounded by culture left and right.
    I would remember throughout my life the grandness of scale and the intricacy of design represented by the famous Parisian monuments. They affected me profoundly in my early years, though I clearly could not verbalize my feelings. The Eiffel Tower would always remain for me a statue of tremendous strength and promise, a simple but incredible beauty of shape and size rendered, as if magically, from the cold harshness of steel. I would often find this paradoxical mixture of beauty and harshness useful to me in dealing with my own sometimes perplexing realities. I saw the Eiffel Tower every day since we lived very close to it and it also seemed to show up en route to every place we went. I would stare at it with soft inspired eyes making a mental imprint of it in my mind as I walked or played beneath it. The top of the tower was especially intriguing to me. It would be visible one day and might disappear the next, leaving me to wonder what was really going on up there. It looked to me like the tip of an iceberg or the twirl of whipped cream on an ice cream sundae.
    The tower represented for me a person standing firmly and proudly with his head gazing high into the sky, his arms and hands clasped formally behind his back. Maybe, I thought, this is the best way to stand in life — strong and confident with our feet deeply grounded in the earth below,